Tawas Point State Park

Walmart's last tire my size, Tawas City

2021's Film-Watching in Review

 

2020 - Love and Monsters
2020 - Save Yourselves!
2019 - Extra Ordinary
2019 - Happy Death Day 2U
2017 - Happy Death Day
2014 - Cooties
1993 - Tombstone
1992 - Sneakers
1987 - Moonstruck *
1984 - Top Secret!
1976 - Family Plot
1972 - The Hot Rock
1971 - A New Leaf *
1971 - Shaft
1970 - The Railway Children
1966 - Tokyo Drifter
1966 - Torn Curtain
1964 - Robinson Crusoe on Mars
1961 - The Hustler
1960 - Peeping Tom
1957 - An Affair to Remember *
1957 - Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison *
1956 - The Solid Gold Cadillac
1954 - It Should Happen To You *
1954 - Phffft!
1950 - Born Yesterday *
1950 - Gun Crazy
1950 - Where Danger Lives
1947 - Nightmare Alley *
1946 - Cluny Brown *
1944 - The Canterville Ghost
1944 - Lifeboat *
1943 - Cry 'Havoc'
1943 - The More The Merrier *
1941 - Topper Returns
1940 - Christmas in July
1939 - At The Circus
1939 - Blind Alley
1939 - Midnight *
1938 - Holiday
1937 - A Day at the Races *
1937 - Easy Living *
1937 - History Is Made At Night *
1937 - King Solomon's Mines
1936 - Libeled Lady *
1936 - My Man Godfrey *
1936 - The Moon's Our Home *
1936 - Wife vs. Secretary
1935 - Hands Across The Table
1935 - The Good Fairy *
1934 - Jimmy The Gent * (Jami's pick o' the year - she's a real Cagney fan)
1934 - Murder at the Vanities
1933 - The Mystery of the Wax Museum
1933 - She Done Him Wrong
1932 - Blessed Event
1932 - Grand Hotel
1932 - Love Me Tonight
1932 - Scarface *
1932 - Shanghai Express
1923 - Our Hospitality *

 Without bothering to count, I'd say we watched fewer films this year. We seemed to settle for comfort-food shorter TV shows (e.g., The Rockford Files, Deep Space Nine) and we've hardly watched any foreign films (notable exception, the wild Tokyo Drifter). What we have watched is a lot of 30s and 40s films, which is entirely as it should be. Were anyone to care enough to ask, I would say without hesitation that my favorite film decade is the 30s, probably because my favorite genre is screwball comedy (although that term seems to be contested, and some people have quite strict standards, so perhaps "fast-talking 30's romcoms" would be a safer catchall).  True standouts of the genre that we watched this year include The Good Fairy, and Easy Living.  The former stars Margaret Sullavan, whom we liked so much that we bought two other films of hers - The Moon's Our Home, another top-10er, and Cry 'Havoc', which is interesting (and, like Nightmare Alley (see below),  features later-period Joan Blondell, another reliable performer) and nicely parallels John Huston's Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison).  The latter stars the great Jean Arthur, who would probably be my star of the year (particularly as she's also in two other top ten films - fast-talking 40's romcom The More The Merrier, and the uncategorizable History Is Made At Night) were it not for the fact that (a) we already discovered her last year, and (b) we discovered the wonderful Judy Holliday this year.  It's tragic that she only got to work for such a comparatively short time, and all her films are worth watching (even The Bells are Ringing, where she is paired with Dean Martin of all people), but It Should Happen To You and in particular, the sublime Born Yesterday are top ten material.  Rounding out the ones that made a real impact on me, at least, are the dark and strange film noir that Tyrone Power liked more than any of his swashbucklers, Nightmare Alley and Elaine May's rambling dark comedy A New Leaf, which I think, is the only color film to make it.  In general, the more recent films we watch tend to be slick but shallow, which may be because we are old and frail and don't risk anything too nasty, which, sadly, the "deep" films seem to need to be.

A tour of our beach house

World's tiniest bathroom.  If you are 4' tall, it's perfect.

Frederick's bedroom.  It must be cozy as he sleeps like a log every night.  His nightstand has a well chosen stack of DK books from home to lull him to dreamland every night.  Last night it was "Volcanoes".  Note extra toilet paper because there is no damn room for it in the bathroom.

Again with the tiny bathroom.  It's such a tight squeeze I pinched a nerve in my neck straining to pick up the shampoo bottle off the floor of the shower while in it and haven't been the same since.

View of The Great Room from the front door/front hallway.  The mirror perfectly placed if you are 4' tall.  That's a towel hanging from the stairwell because there is NO ROOM in the bathroom for towels.

Mystery Room.  I'm guessing it holds (a) vacuum, (b) water filter system (the kitchen sink has a special tap for extra filtered drinking water) and (c) the camera system Simon's is convinced the house owners use to spy on us.

Kitchen much smaller than appears in picture.  We brought most of our own appliances (french fry fryer, toaster and tea kettle).  Also Simon brought along his own Garam Masala spices.  The only spices here are a wide (VERY wide) selection of grinders of peppers to use when cooking meat on the grill outside, which is currently covered with snow. 

Same kitchen.  Still small.  Yeah, we brought along our own french fry slicer, too.

The table Simon sits at staring at his computer 15 hours a day.  Wonder why he can't fall asleep at night?

The only light in the living room.  Either other people can see in the dark or they don't do anything once the sun goes down that requires light.  This place needs about 5 more lamps.

Frederick, the most relaxed person in the world, watching Klaus and Lake Huron waves about 50 yards outside that door. 

Mysterious telescope that doesn't allow anyone to see anything.  Not a huge loss because there is absolutely nothing to see out on the water anyway.  Maybe in the summertime you can watch people lose swim shorts in the waves but no one is swimming these days.

Death Stairs.  I twisted my knee something fierce the first night, trying to climb to bed.  Once in bed, you can't get up for ANYTHING unless you want to die a grisly death.  The nearest hospital is 48 miles away in Alpena, so it's not worth the risk.

The bed, which I think is set up incorrectly as it is wider than it is long.  The house provides no blankets--not a single one--but at least 20 5lb ginormous pillows per person.  Maybe the pillows are the blankets for really, really small people?

The TV over the bed didn't work, which didn't bother us because, if we wanted to watch TV we could watch the giant one in the living area, but was perfectly situated to clonk one on the head when one (well, me, Simon) got up in the night to pee - something Jami would never attempt.

All in all, a very nice little place.  A bit pricey, and, given that every inch of coastline is taken up by similar (mostly a lot uglier) beach houses, I bet it's really crowded in Summer, but it was a nice place to escape to for a few days.  I think Frederick may be a bit bored of the twice-daily walks on the beach, but I'm not!

Inside and out of "Northstar Cottage"

Sturgeon Point Lighthouse

Walking on the beach with Frederick

Film review: History Is Made At Night (1937)

 

This is a crazy mashup of a movie that somehow makes it all work.  It stars Charles Boyer, most famous as the evil husband from Gaslight, where the now over-popular verb comes from, and Jean Arthur, who is perhaps the best of the leading ladies of screwball comedy.  The combination is about right for this film, which combines comedy, romance, drama and even a smidgen of disaster movie just for good measure.  And the thing is, all the parts succeed, and they all work in one film.  It's almost as if it's a mini-series where each episode is directed by a different auteur in a different style.  The main outline of the plot is that Jean Arthur is married to Bruce Vail, an evil shipping magnate played with effective menace and creepiness by Colin "Frankenstein" Clive, 

whose obsessive jealousy drives her away.  He's convinced there's another man, but there really isn't, but she can't take him any more, and she runs off to Paris to hide out while awaiting the required time for a divorce.  Apparently, she has to steer clear of other men for a set time before the divorce can be finalized.  Knowing this, Bruce orders their chauffeur to break into her room 

and be embracing her when Bruce (and his henchmen) break in, so that it looks like she's been unfaithful.  All is going according to plan, except Charles Boyer's Paul, who (we will later discover) is the greatest head waiter in all the world, is putting a drunk friend to bed in his adjacent hotel room and overhears all, and sneaks round via the balcony in time to knock out the chauffeur as he manhandles our heroine (Irene).  But then Bruce breaks in, and knowing that he'll just accuse him of being Irene's fancy man (thereby undermining the divorce), he pretends to be a jewel thief, locks Bruce and his men in the closet, and (she thinks) kidnaps Irene.  But then he returns all her jewels in the taxi and takes her to his restaurant, the Château Bleu, where we meet the comic relief of the movie, Paul's bosom buddy, comedy Italian Cesar (played by Leo Carrillo, whom I recognized from the bootlegger in If you could only cook), the greatest chef in the world.  After a night where Cesar has made them his signature meal of Lobster Cardinale and salade chiffoniere, along with a very special vintage of champagne, and the band has serenaded them till dawn, Irene has found the happiness that has so long eluded her when she returns, walking on air, to her hotel room, to find it the scene of a murder investigation.  What we know, and she (and the cops) don't is that Bruce beat the chauffeur to death so that he could frame Paul (whom his mad jealousy for once correctly identified as a lover rather than a thief) for his murder.  Seeing what a pickle Paul is in, Irene agrees to go back to Bruce if he agrees not to testify.  So, naturally, she doesn't show up to the five o'clock date she's arranged because she's on one of Bruce's ships headed back to New York.  Ignoring Cesare's bemused insistence that Irene is just like other women, Paul is sure that something is wrong and he needs to go to Irene.  So he and Cesare head for New York, and put a plan into action that will bring her to them rather than having to find her: they take over a New York restaurant and turn it into the hottest place in town.  Well, it turns out that Irene left Bruce again to work as a dress model for subsistence wages under an assumed name, but shortly after Paul and Cesare's plan comes to fruition, a detective hired by Bruce finds Irene to tell her that the murderer has been caught.  Irene shows up in his office (where he has a giant portrait of her) and he shows her the telegram that proves that this is true.  So she agrees to finally rejoin him for good so long as he will testify in Paul's favor.  To celebrate their reunion, Bruce decides to take them out for a meal at this new place he's heard about...  Of course Paul has a special table reserved and orders the special meal, 

but to his amazement, Irene just laughs when she sees him.  He totally misreads this as contempt for his profession, instead of the huge relief that the person who's been arrested in Paris is not him.  Well, as you can imagine, she ends up not heading to Paris with Bruce (on a Zeppelin this time!) but she cannot talk Paul into escaping to Tahiti (once she's explained about the whole laughing thing) and they end up heading to Paris so that he can save the defendant (probably his drunk friend from the next room).  But they leave Cesare behind - or do they?  How is it that the chefs on this ship, which is named Irene because it's Bruce's new flagship, know how to cook Lobster Cardinale and salade chiffonade that well?  But... why is the ship going so fast in the fog?  And what's that looming up ahead of the ship?

Phew!  Literally never a dull moment!  But perhaps the strongest strand that runs through the whole thing is the sizzling chemistry between Boyer and Arthur.  The romance really works, and even though you might think death by iceberg as a punishment by one's insane husband a bit over-the-top, it really cements the relationship.  A late contender for best film of this year! 

Northstar Cottage

Film review: Love Me Tonight (1932)

This is the musical that "Isn't it romantic?" was written for.  It's also a vehicle for the unique charms of Maurice "obviously the inspiration for Pepe Le Pew" Chevalier and his now-hard-to-take-seriously accent.  This is one of several pairings of Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald, who has huge bulgy eyes and a rather exaggerated "silent film" style of acting, which the presence of Myrna Loy throws into even sharper relief here.  This is definitely pre-code (the Blu-Ray even comes with a list of the various cuts demanded by the censors in different locations, and apparently an extended scene of Loy in a negligee was destroyed at the time and is lost to history), with a lot of wink-wink references, some of which rely on no-longer current terminology.  Essentially, the setup is this: Chevalier, whom we see awaken along with all of Paris in the impressive opening scene, and then proceed from his fairly humble abode through streets full of the women he has romanced (and their husbands) 

to his shop, is "Maurice," (I always wonder about actors whose characters tend to have their names - can't they remember to react to a different name?) a tailor of great skill but modest means.  However, he tells his first customer, who is delighted at the wedding finery Maurice has produced, but worried that he will be able to stay in business.  Not to worry, says Maurice, he has the Viscount de Varèze as a customer, who has already bought 40,000 Francs worth of suits!  Indeed, the Viscount shows up very shortly thereafter: the "across Paris" race is going past the shop door, and he (Charles Ruggles, another regular in the MacDonald-Chevalier films) has been pretending to be part of it, mainly because he's only in his undershirt and boxers, thanks to having had to beat a hasty retreat from the bedroom of a lady whose husband has returned unexpectedly (see what I mean about Pre Code?).  

He happily dons one of the many suits Maurice has made for him, and then hits Maurice up for cash on top of it (because, of course, his wallet was in his trousers), promising to pay Maurice (and the hatmaker, shoemaker and shirtmaker that Maurice has subcontracted with) as soon as he visits his rich uncle, the Duke in the country to get his allowance.  Of course, we the viewers have begun to distrust the Viscount by this point, but it's only later when the hatmaker et. al are badgering Maurice for their share of the money that a representative of the Merchant's guild (or something) comes to his store and announces that the Viscount de Varèze is notorious for never paying his debts.  Crestfallen, Maurice broods and then rallies: in the spirit of the revolution he will go down to the Duke's chateau and demand payment!  Cheered on by all Varèze's creditors, off he sets.  On the way down, we get the first meeting of Maurice and "Princess Jeanette" (again with the character-name-is-actor's-name), where Maurice is instantly smitten and even implants an earworm song ("Mimi," for some reason) in her head, but she stiffarms him, despite the fact that he rescued her from the ditch after her cart got overturned avoiding his broken-down car and heads off.  Eventually he makes it to the Duke's chateaux, which is largely filled with wrinklies (the Duke's idea of a great day is Bridge followed by napping followed by more Bridge), both guest and serving staff, except for the Viscount (whose first name is Gilbert), the Princess and Myrna Loy's sexually rapacious Countess Valentine, who, just like Gilbert, has been cut off and essentially grounded for her prodigal ways.  

Oh, and there is also the milquetoast Comte de Savignac, who constantly plights his troth to the polite but uninterested princess.  The Duke and (a smartened up) Maurice meet, and the Duke takes a shine to him, but before Maurice can demand his money, Gilbert takes him aside and warns him against the direct method.  He then introduces Maurice as his friend "Baron Courtelin," and the Duke throws himself into entertaining him (smitten as he is by "Mimi" - so much so that he wakes up the following day singing it) 

while Maurice, who initially resists the deception and feels uncomfortably out of his depth, upon seeing that the Princess (whom we have learned by now became a Princess in her late teens when she married a septuagenarian, who left a widow three years later)  is one of the chateau's inhabitants, happily plays along.  His first test is a hunt, where the (still resistant) princess picks out a horse called "Solitude," so named because he always comes home alone, and Maurice is carried off.  But the Princess eventually finds him, somewhat the worse for wear but cheerful, feeding oats to the stag they've been chasing inside a little hunting lodge.  

Gradually the Princess thaws, but Maurice's fatal mistake (although he's already dodged one bullet as the jealous Savignac worked his way through all the volumes of the French Aristocracy to find that there was no Baron Courtelin - but Gilbert saved the day by insinuating he was really royalty in disguise) is revealing his tailoring skill in redesigning her archaic and prim hunting outfit (another chance, after an earlier doctor's examination (essentially, for boredom), to see MacDonald in her skivvies).  

Having said the previous night that she would love Maurice whoever or whatever he is, she is nonetheless appalled and runs off.  Maurice decides that he can no longer stomach this social milieu and sets off home on the train.  Seeing him go, the Princess realizes she can't live without him and gives chase on her horse (in her natty new hunting outfit, naturally).  Will they be united?  I think you can guess.

Overall, some sparkling repartee, several double entendres, and altogether too many songs (no matter that they're Rogers and Hart compositions) for my liking.